The Widower

I have been viewing this story as a TV mini-series here in New Zealand, where it made significant news due to relevant local connections.

Whilst I cannot fault the work of the principal actors/actresses in the story, I do feel that a number of liberties have been taken in its production, leading it somewhat askew from the details of the events as they actually occurred.

I refer here to the attempted murder of Ms. Drumm - Webster's second wife, in New Zealand, in 1999. From my recollection of the incident, the couple were driving in to the bank at which point Webster veered the car over two or three lanes of motorway before the car left the road as he pretended to be having a heart attack, not as the movie portrayed it, which involved parking up at a forest park where Webster was intending to torch the vehicle with Ms. Drumm inside.

A further anomaly here is the funds Webster misappropriated from Ms. Drumm's account. The story clearly portrayed the amount of funds in the account as $240,000, yet in historical news reports this is stated as $140,000.

I recall reading somewhere that some of the key witnesses were consulted prior to the making of this drama, so why did the production team find it so necessary to distort the facts in a case that will be remembered by so many for the events portrayed on-screen moreso than those given in the distantly remembered media coverage?

So often these true crime dramas tend to start slow, try to set the scene, establish character and the mood.

Not so with The Widower. Sheridan Smith as Claire Webster marries Malcolm Webster (Reece Shearsmith) and is soon bumped off as she takes a close interest in her husband's financial affairs.

Malcolm is a charmer but also controlling and a killer who likes to drug people and start fires. He made Claire's death look like an accident. He collected on her life insurance and went off to New Zealand to start a new life and find his next prey. The life insurance money did not last long. However his second wife's family were eventually on to him and his nefarious plans against his second wife did not succeed.

Malcolm returned to Scotland and set his eyes on hospital administrator Simone Banarjee. By this time the police took a closer interest on Malcolm Webster.

The story was condensed. It was 14 years from his first marriage until the police got a warrant to investigate his house. Webster was also involved in other relationships and other deaths such as some children in a hospital in the middle east where he worked as a nurse that is glossed over.

However Shearsmith found it difficult to put over the charm because of how quickly the episodes moved. He just came across as too creepy especially as he talked to his drugged wives which was in effect a mechanism for internal narration.

However this a cautionary tale of a needy charmer, fantasist who can smell money from a mile off and is prepared to kill for it.

We were fascinated by how oblivious this man is. The first half of the film is pretty slow, so we ended up watching it on 1.5x which helped a bit. The actors did really well and the cinematography isn't dark, which is always great. Also, except for a couple of slips, the vocab, sex, and violence are PG, which is fantastic!! Loved seeing John Hannah. Wish the story had brought the investigation in sooner and had spent more time on it. Among the few things that are unbelievable are that they couldn't get some sort of word, even anonymously, to the third victim. Would have given it 7/10, but are so grateful that they left out the gunginess that most shows include these days, we gave it 9/10.

I've seen a documentary about the real life story, so I was interested to see how it was portrayed in a fictional series. They did well, obviously there were quite a few things different from the real story but the basic gist is there.

The main actor did a great job - he was perfectly creepy, frustrating, believable when talking himself out of situations and pathetic all at once.

The acting in general by everyone else was well done. I do wish they'd used actual New Zealand actors (or even aussies) as I could still hear the English accent from the actress, but she did do a good job at a hard accent! (I'm Australian).

Some parts were glossed over or rushed, but I enjoyed the show and 3 episodes is just enough for a mini series.

True life story which follows a mans hunger for greed ! Great acting & because it's a true story it'll leave you stunned at what lengths he will go to , to get what he wants .